Ahwatukee (Phoenix) PONY Baseball

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May, 2019

Fall 2019 Registration is now open!

Ahwatukee Foothills PONY Baseball has just opened its Fall 2019 Registration for Recreational Players.

Players in recreational level of play DO NOT need to be affiliated with a team. In fact, most players who register in recreational do so as individual players looking for a team.

No prior baseball experience is needed to join at any recreational level.

This Fall, we are making some significant changes to the way we form our teams!

For our 6 U Shetland age group, players simply sign up and get assigned to teams. As always, if your player has a friend or friends they want to play with in Shetland, you can request that they be placed on the same team during registration. We do our best to honor all those requests as space allows.

Based on feedback from coaches last season, there are changes being made to the way teams are formed this Fall for Pinto level and above!

Players who participated in the Spring PONY Baseball season, may request to play with friends and/or with a specific coach in the Fall and we will work to honor those requests as space allows.

All other players will participate in a fun and low stress skills evaluation on August 24th. The purpose of this evaluation is not to exclude any players from participating, but rather to allow coaches at each level to evaluate each players abilities. Immediately following the evaluation, a draft will be held by coaches to form teams.

Our hope is that this approach will distribute talent evenly throughout teams within the league and provide a better playing experience for players and coaches alike!

This new approach means that coaches will need to be established early for teams. You have the ability to sign up as a coach during registration and I urge each of you to consider doing it! It can be an incredibly rewarding experience for you and your player. The league has partnered with Dugout Captain this year. This is a service that provides customized practice plans and instructional videos for entire seasons (so even a brand new coach can look like a Pro!). The founder of this site is affiliated with PONY Baseball in California and is well known in the Youth Baseball World there.

Each division is currently open to accept only 12 players. As coaches volunteer, we will increase that cap by 12 for each coach that signs up. If there are more interested players than coaches, those players will be wait-listed until such time as we have a coach for a full team.

We will not be accepting any late registrations this year for any reason.

In the past, as an organization, we have tried to accommodate every player who wants to play baseball - even last minute sign ups. This flexibility led to delays in getting schedules finalized, uniforms ordered and delivered in a timely manner and overall organizational issues. Opening Fall registration in May is our way of showing our continued commitment to allowing every player in the City of Phoenix a chance to play high quality baseball. Please do you part by enrolling your player early and by volunteering to coach!

For those of you who have a Competitive Team that you would like to enroll in the league this Fall, Stay tuned! Competitive BYOT registration will also be opening soon.